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“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don't find myself saying, "Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner." I don't try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.” (Carl Rogers)

Sunday, 26 April 2015

Reasons to be Cheerful (Part Thirteen)

Doctor telling me that I'm doing okay healthwise - a few small grumbles are just my body breaking down, the toll that life takes. I was really pleased to hear this and now I feel that have carte blanche to just ignore the small inevitable signs of decrepitude and enjoy existence more.

Another writing retreat to progress the work. That Lundon. Was moved to a different hotel, as something wrong at original, free breakfast every day to compensate. Okay. Room like a broom cupboard and no window, not pleasant. People working there were lovely, really nice, got moved to nicer room, got lots and shitloads lots of articles read and noted - 36 over the 3 days - and also found aspects of my overall thesis that I didn't have yet. Real progress. Oh, I also did a couple of good sessions of aerobic exercise in the small gym room, at least before hedonistic excess took over...

And anyway, why that Lundon? Well, my old mate Mick, he that be Cleethorpes Promenade, is there and he was kind enough to invite me on a pilgrimage to the grave of William Blake. I walked from Princes Gardens to the Barbican, a gorgeous walk in the spring sunshine, through Hyde Park and then along the babylon of Oxford Street, which was just fantastic, pushing through and dodging all the varieties and shapes and sizes and fashions and languages and accents and smiles and just people - loved it!

Sunshiney Hyde Park

Italian Gardens Hyde Park

I waited, and not long, for Mick and what should he produce, but the very version of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience that I myself had brought. Oh, how we did smile. Anyway, we had a lovely time catching up and I was fascinated and in admiration for my friend's work safeguarding and conserving the precarious existence of the nightjar and other feathered marvels - especially when they live in 'scrapes' on the ground in the southern Heathlands, which makes them very vulnerable to the impact of growing human populations, including returning soldiers from Afghanistan.

After the cup that cheers, we headed off to the graveyard, whereby Mick produced a rose for each of us to place on the grave, he then passionately recited The Fly, after which I played my own Blake songs of innocence and experience, lost in that shared moving heartfelt moment in the universe.

Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing

Then, naturally, we danced and drank and sang, we happy flies...

The other reason dlaczego w Londynu for this particular writing retreat is that stary Michał and Kuba live and work there, too, and its about time we saw each other again! And, well, what can I say, gorgeous to see both, and to be wild and free and dancing in what felt like an exclusive club because I know no better and Michał like some 1950s Hollywood film star, broody and charismatic, and Kuba so open and free and earlier Mirela with her lotions, and smoke and coke in the smoke and the road of excess will lead to the path of wisdom and I love my friends and oh how we danced and sang, we happy happy flies!

I may be walking this path 6 weeks or more late but I am still enjoying the journey. I wonder about "excess" in relation to excessively drinking from "..everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think as I really think" perhaps this is why we need to shake off the shackles and dance and sing like happy flies and feel like fucking shit the next day... Perhaps we really need this to just keep stepping outand stepping in-to, in-too this moment sufficiently free of the conditions that are blocking our freedom to learn, to grow, to flourish, becoming all that I am you are we are

Thanks Billy for your inspiration Would have loved the photo to have been a video of the rendition of the Fly and your singing.